I was completely enamored with Grace. This beautiful woman experienced trauma, pain, death, humiliation. But despite everything, she’s continued to push on. Continued to live her life, little by little. Until a man by the name of West St. Claire came into the picture and completely pushed her outside her comfort zone and showed her just how incredible, strong, beautiful and brave she truly was. to be honest, i didn't feel much when i was reading this because i didn't feel the MCs romantic chemistry and passion. i guess it was the writing or something especially in West's chapters in the beginning when his nonchalant "romantic" attitude reinforced my nonchalant feelings towards their romance. I’m dying to know all about his bad boy dress code, I’m imagining he has some holes on his shirts where the heart is, I swoon over a poetic hero.... humm maybe his superstition involves another part of his body so instead he cut holes on his pants. A practical man, you got love those

I seem to be alone among many reviewers who loved this book but it just didn’t work for me. The writing was great with some beautiful descriptive passages of Venice and the author is obviously extremely talented. I would like to read one of her previous books at some time to get another taste of her writing. I read this because I had a fabulous holiday in Italy where I read an excellent novel set in WWII Florence which swept me up into a world I didn’t want to leave. When I saw this was set in Italy during the war I thought it might provide a way of prolonging my holiday…Besides that, this does dive into the romance department which I devoured. Even if some things were a smidge predictable. These two had chemistry and some sort of connection that just made me enjoy watching them be them. Which is so weird to say but I did. WHAT IS BAILEY? I suspected she was part god early enough in the book, but why is it never confirmed and what’s the point of making her part god if there’s no real reason for it? Playing With Fire by L.J. Shen made my heart and soul burn so brightly and sweetly. The writing dragged me down to the most beautiful emotional hell and took me to the heaven of angst. One of my favourite L.J. Shen story ever. We switch between present day Brookline, Massachusetts with violinist Julia Ansdell, and the late 1930's in Venice, Italy with violinist Lorenzo Todesco, composer of Incendio.

West calls Grace "Texas", Melanie looks like Grace sooo... y'all can infer why he slept with the OW.This one is difficult to rate properly because it has so much potential that could really shine under an editor. Fire symbolized beauty, fury, and rebirth, she explained. Too bad in my case, it symbolized nothing but my demise." It definitely read like Audrey was just a one dimensional villain because she cheated on Quinn. Look, she’s a whore so she has to be the villain, even though no motivation was ever really explained. It made no sense and while I don’t condone cheating, it felt very slut shame-y to make her the entire book’s bad guy simply because she cheated on her husband (who married her for selfish reasons and wasn’t even attracted to her?? - again, issue of consent - why did she marry him? Was she in love with him or did she know she was just a prop to ward off other women for him?).